ok
for wild flowers. This met with the full approval of the young people,
and they prepared at once for the botanizing party. The Captain saw
Marjorie putting on her broad-brimmed straw hat, and enquired where she
was going. She answered that she was going buttonizing with Eugene, and
he said that he guessed he would button too, whatever that was. A very
merry little group frisked about the steps of the two seniors, one of
whom was explaining to the older, nautical party that he was on the hunt
for wild flowers.

"Is it yarbs you're after?" asked the Captain.

"Well, not exactly, although I want to get a specimen of every kind of
plant."

"You don't want to make medicine of 'em, Mandrake, Snakeroot, Wild
Sassyperilly, Ginsing, Bearberry, Gentian, Cohosh and all that sort o'
stuff, eh?"

"No; I want to find out their names, dry and mount them, and classify
them according to their kinds."

"What good are they agoin' to do you?"

"They will help me to know Nature better and to admire God's works and
His plan."

"Keep on there, mate, fair sailin' and a good wind to you. No pay in
it, though?"

"Not a cent in money, but lots of pleasure and health."

"Like collectin' post stamps and old pennies, and butterflies, and
bugs."

"Something, but you see scenery and get healthy exercise, which you
don't in stamp and coin collecting, and you inflict no suffering, as you
do in entomologizing."

"I can tell trees when they're a growin' and timber when its cut, but I
don't know the name of one flower from another, except it's garden ones
and common at that. Hullo, little puss, what have you got there?"

Marjorie, who had run on in advance and was not by any means ignorant of
the flora of the neighbourhood, had secured three specimens, a late
Valerian, an early spotted Touch-me-not, and a little bunch of
Blue-eyed-grass. Coristine took them from her with thanks, told her
their names and stowed them away in his candle box. The zeal to discover
and add to the collection grew upon all the party, the Captain included.
Near the water, where the Valerian and the Touch-me-not grew, Marjorie
Carruthers found the Snake-head, with its large white flowers on a
spike. Another little Carruthers brought to the botanist the purple
Monkey flower, but the Captain excelled his youthful nephew by adding to
the collection the rarer and smaller yellow one. Then the lawyer himself
discovered another yellow flower, the Gratiola or Hedge Hysso